Monthly Archives: November 2011

Should all Africans become like Egyptians when it comes to challenging leaders? This is a fundamental question I ask to anyone out there working for change on the African continent. In less than a year, Egypt and its people are again showing to the rest of the world that masses are tired of being continuously lied to by politicians.

Most politicians if not all are liars. Is Sarkozy less of a liar than Netanyahu, though he treated the latter of being one in a leaked conversation with Obama? You tell me. But this is not about these three, but about South African politics. If one remembers, when Mandela was freed from prison and his country ended Apartheid rule, many in South Africa and the rest of the world, believed strongly in a new era where victims of the discriminative system would harvest in a reasonable period of time the benefits of such change.

Julius Malema, the leader of ANCYL, and a significant fraction of his compatriots don’t think that much has effectively changed since then. For his frank-speaking over issues affecting South Africans and other Africans elsewhere, that officials in ANC leadership cannot address effectively, he has been publicly demonised. The following article from William Mpofu writing in The Sowetan pleads for his defence. Continue reading →

“Western countries are once again using feigned concern as pretext for invasion and resource theft.”

As we watched with bewilderment, NATO’s military assault on Libya using “humanitarian intervention” as it’s pretext, we are reminded of an earlier period of Western European “civilizing” missions into Africa. Shortly after the Berlin West African Conference of 1884-1885; armed with bibles and bullets, a host of countries: Britain; France; Germany; Belgium; and Portugal, “scrambled” out of Western Europe in a quest to “save Africans from themselves”. Continue reading →

‘Every event, whether painful or joyous, presents a learning opportunity:
The wise will objectively study the experience to prevent their own misfortune or maximize benefits in the event of a similar fate;
Adaptation is the attribute of survivors;
Foresight the gift of true revolutionaries;
Victory is the assured product of the prepared. Continue reading →

Like this:

This premise may seem extreme for many people or nations embedded with aid mentality. But the reality is what it is. This is not preaching individualism or isolationism, but instead reminding a simple principle of life. Historically, if one looks around seriously, there is no country today called developed, which got to their current level of achievements in industrial, cultural, financial, or any other area through aid. Consequently, African countries which have for decades been forcibly fed with aid in its numerous and diverse forms, and sometimes blackmailed about it as David Cameron did when he announced that British aid would from then on go to countries which respect gay rights, need to realise that something else different from development is being pursued by donor countries. Continue reading →

CONCORD, NH – Katrina Lantos Swett, President of The Lantos Foundation for Human Rights and Justice, responded today to a protest staged in opposition to the upcoming award of the 2011 Tom Lantos Human Rights Prize to Rwandan humanitarian Paul Rusesabagina:

“The protest staged today is only the latest attempt to smear the good name of this year’s Lantos Prize recipient, Paul Rusesabagina. These protests were not staged when the Oscar-nominated film “Hotel Rwanda” was released, nor were they staged when Paul received the Presidential Medal of Freedom from President Bush. It was only once he started to speak out about the need for more freedom and democracy in Rwanda, including a Truth and Reconciliation process, that these attacks were suddenly manufactured. Unfortunately these attacks appear to be consistent with a disturbing pattern of censorship, intimidation and even violence that has been directed at those who have dared voice concerns about the government of Rwanda. This pattern is not unique to Rwanda. Other authoritarian regimes have responded in a similar fashion. Continue reading →